Clifford D. May
September 29, 2003, 10:22 a.m.
Spy Games
Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA?
snip
he was affiliated with the pro-Saudi Middle East Institute and he had recently been the keynote speaker for the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, a far-Left group that opposed not only the U.S. military intervention in Iraq but also the sanctions and the no-fly zones that protected Iraqi Kurds and Shias from being slaughtered by Saddam.
Mr. Wilson is now saying (on C-SPAN this morning, for example) that he opposed military action in Iraq because he didn't believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and he foresaw the possibility of a difficult occupation. In fact, prior to the U.S. invasion, Mr. Wilson told ABC's Dave Marash that if American troops were sent into Iraq, Saddam might "use a biological weapon in a battle that we might have. For example, if we're taking Baghdad or we're trying to take, in ground-to-ground, hand-to-hand combat."
snip
Mr. Wilson has said that his mission came about following a request from Vice President Cheney. But it appears that if Mr. Cheney made the request at all, he made it of the CIA and did not know Mr. Wilson and certainly did not specify that he wanted Mr. Wilson put on the case.
It has to be seen as puzzling that the agency would deal with an inquiry from the White House on a sensitive national-security matter by sending a retired, Bush-bashing diplomat with no investigative experience. Or didn't the CIA bother to look into Mr. Wilson's background?
If that's what passes for tradecraft in Langley, we're in more trouble than any of us have realized.
Let the damned Dems try to oust Rove with this and we'll just send Wilson's and Plame's paper trail to every Conservative talk radio host in America. :-)
Exactly! And if there's really somebody there who thinks that there's any difference in the level of suspicion the other side would have between that accorded to an agency employee and that accorded to the Ambassador's wife, they're in BIG trouble. "Hey, Abdul, I saw Farhad talking to the Ambassador's wife, but it's not like that's any security risk or anything. I mean, I'm sure she wouldn't tell the American government anything."
Sheesh! How could anybody think the connection between the Ambassador's wife and the U.S. Government would be secret? It has to be somebody who thinks military attaches are really attaches. It's the "Get Smart" school of spycraft.
How can this clown have any credibility at all when he makes self-contradictory statements like these? Saddam doesn't have them but, if we invade Iraq, he may use them.